In my many forays into our local nature, I’ve come across plants and berries that were unfamiliar. I saw the movie “Into the Wild.”  I believe what I see on “the big screen.”  The movie comes with a warning label: “nature is to be approached with caution.”  I’ve come close to bad calls on several occasions, but at last, I unexpectedly stumbled across a low growing bush covered with what appeared to me to be acorns.  Well who better than me to say, “now wait a minute, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, can I trust my eyes?”  But sure enough, I had found a California Oak festooned with acorns. I probably never gave the trees a second glance until the acorns came along. I was originally dubious because the oak was a low growing bush, maybe 4’ tall, not what you envision when you think “tree.” My first “find” of native vegetation that will not kill, sting or otherwise poison me. Yeepee!  My first hurdle to conquering my personal journey toward becoming a botanist – junior grade, honestly, a beginner at best. 
   In the 5th grade when kids learn about local history, I lived in the East.  My hometown was settled by the Pokanoket Wampanoag tribe.  (No, wampum jokes are not appreciated.)  Being close to Plymouth Colony I was taught that corn was the staple of local Indians. You know, the whole Thanksgiving story with Indians giving the pilgrims corn. Can’t say that I see many corn stalks here in the hills—which got me thinking.  The local aborigines, the Tongva Nation, depended heavily on acorns as a food source. Oak trees grew wild; the Tongva Nation led a “hunter/gatherer” existence. Corn is a crop that requires a lot of water.  Before the advent of William Mulholland, in these parts, water was a scare resource. It makes sense that planting and growing corn in this area would have been a non starter.  It all seems to tie together. After some investigatory journalism, I learned that corn is thought to have been brought to this area by the Spanish missionaries in the late 1770s. The padres had large herds of cattle to which they fed corn.   In a twist of irony, paleobotanical discoveries indicate that cultivated corn has existed in parts of the Southwestern U.S. for at least 3,000 years, but not here.
   In the fall, the Tongva community at large gathered acorns. Only the ones that fell to the ground with their “hats” on were suitable for eating.  First they needed to be dried, and ground, then put through a leaching process to remove the bitter taste.  This was a difficult task given that the Tongva did not use stone cookware.  Instead they would place the ground acorn meal with water into baskets made of reeds, and put hot rocks into the basket to warm the water and the meal.  
   I daydream that some of the oaks we see today are old enough to have given sustenance to locals long ago, and that it now bring us another kind of pleasure:  a pause from our harried routine to admire the gift of fall’s beauty —canyon style.